


Packed Lunches

by revenant_oozi



Category: DCU, DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Domestic, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-31
Updated: 2012-05-31
Packaged: 2017-11-06 09:24:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/417295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/revenant_oozi/pseuds/revenant_oozi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>First day of school- The night before</p>
            </blockquote>





	Packed Lunches

It wasn't the entrance through the window that Roy heard from the living room, but rather the gentle, thoughtful way it was closed right after the intrusion. Therefore, it must be Dick Grayson stumbling through his bedroom, tripping over a nightstand as he'd shifted the bed to a different wall since the acrobat had visited last. He started imagining a fun game in which he moved his entire houseful of furniture around every time Dick came over, just to see how long it would take him to start second-guessing every window breech. _Or_ come to the conclusion that Roy had started doing cocaine.

"Lian's asleep." He mutters the unnecessary warning without looking behind him, shifting a bare leg off the couch should his unexpected company want a seat.

He does, and of course, wet dingy boots were taken off on the mat before he even left the bedroom, because Dick is always so damn considerate like that, even as he puts his black socked- _and probably sweaty_ \- feet on the coffee table. Roy takes a moment to consider how many people have a welcome mat under their sixteenth story bedroom window, but before he can voice his thoughts, Dick just has to ask, "What're you doin awake at two in the morning?" 

He doesn't ask just what the hell Dick is doing coming through his window at this hour, because he really just doesn't care, not like its a new development.

"Couldn't sleep. Watchin the Food Network." He rubs a hand over his eyes, noting that they're dry and probably red before picking idly at the stitches on his chest. "I really don't want this British chick to win, she's very... pointy looking."

Dick takes a minute to watch, cocking his head to the left like that side of the brain really has to work and come to a well-rounded option on this matter, "Yeah, you're right. Roy, go to bed."

He shakes his head, leaning back further into the couch, "Dick, she... she can't go tomorrow. She can go next year, she'll be-"

Before he can say ' _better prepared_ ' or ' _ready to go out_ ' or even ' _taller_ ', Dick cuts in with his damn Bat-logic, "She'll be older and awkward and have a better view of parades than the other kids and she'll resent you until she has a driver's license. Well, past that even, really, not gonna lie."

Roy folds himself forward, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eye sockets until he has kaleidoscope vision, "What if they call me and she fell off the monkey bars and broke her neck!? Or she freaks out and needs me and I'm not there, she still gets lost when she doesn't hold my hand. And what if som- Dick what are you doing?"

The half-assed panic attack ends when he notices Dick rooting around in various cabinets and closets, sort of bummed that he didn't sit and accept Roy being a single parent hell-bent on making his child socially inept.

"Looking for a helmet, since you seem like you'd feel better if she just wore it all day. Don't forget her snow-suit even though its August because it might be drafty in that classroom. Oh and I hear they release noxious gases through the air vents that cause the kids to assassinate the pets of neighbors later on in life."

Dick stops and looks over his shoulder pointedly, letting Roy sulk on the couch as it all sinks in. "She'll be fine, Roy. Everyone has a first day of school. Let it happen. She'll be gone a few hours, and then right back here and you'll have to hear her talk about how great it was until she passes out for the night."

An arm falls around Roy's slumped shoulders as he shakes his head, still pressed into his hands and stubbornly staying that way until he finally takes a forced deep breath. "I don't wanna be that guy with the helmet-kid."

"No, you don't." Dick pulls a hand away from where it's hell-bent on smothering his eyeball and squeezes at each calloused fingertip distractingly, a quick press of lips to his palm. "C'mon, Harper, lets go tuck you in and I'll tell you a bedtime story."

"You don't get it, Dick!" Roy seems to forget his own warning earlier of there being a kid asleep only a few yards away, voice lowering once he notices, "I only get a couple years that she wants me around! Then she figures out I'm lame and I'll get clingy she'll start sneaking out and oh _god_ she'll start lying to me and... Dick I can't do this. I know everything I put Ollie through and the shit I did just to spite him and I _know_ all the shit thats out there! We know better than _anyone_! I can't let her go because tomorrow is the first day of her," He stops, seemingly exhaling all the air from his lungs, "not being my little girl anymore. Dick, she's gonna _hate_ me."

Dick ignores all of this, merely staring at him with the blankest expression he can muster and standing up, still pulling Roy's arm, "So you can put it off for another year and make it worse, home-school her and regret it for the rest of your life, or option three, my favorite, get in your damn bed, hear a damn bedtime story, get some damn sleep, and I'll be here in the damn morning if you need me. Sound damn good?"

Roy keeps his arm extended as Dick's hold on his hand doesn't relent with standing, finally looking him in the eye with the smallest bit of hope, "...is it a good story?" Dick nods and pulls at him again. "Does a clown with a machine gun open fire on a schoolbus? Because... I hate that story."

In the morning, Dick wakes up alone, boots covered in dried crud still on the window-mat but joined by the rest of his Nightwing getup. Knowing Roy won't want to come home to an empty apartment when he's done dropping Lian off at school, Dick rolls over into the cooling side of the vacated bed, finding a note scribbled haphazardly on the nightstand.

" _Lian needs Spiderman lunchbox  
1- figure out what 'Spiderman' is  
2- buy lunchbox  
3- shag me senseless_"

He shakes his head but grins anyway, putting the note back and pulling the covers over his head. If Roy was convinced this spider-fellow and some mindless afternoon sex would fix his momentary panic, Dick was perfectly okay with staying another night.


End file.
